Mohit Arora v. State (NCT of Delhi)
Delhi High Court2026 SCC OnLine Del 1022Bench: J. Anish Dayal
The Delhi High Court upheld the conviction and dismissed the appeal. The Court held that there is no rule of law requiring corroboration for the testimony of a child victim in POCSO cases — the position settled by the Supreme Court in State of HP v. Shree Kant Shekari (2004) 8 SCC 153 and endorsed repeatedly thereafter is that a child victim's testimony, if found credible and consistent, is sufficient to found a conviction. The Court applied the principle that in offences of sexual assault, the victim is the best and often the only witness, and an insistence on corroboration as a rule of prudence is gender-biased and has been expressly deprecated by the Supreme Court. On medical evidence, the Court held that absence of physical injury does not disprove the offence — sexual assault as defined under Section 7 POCSO does not require penetration and can be proved without injury evidence. The trial court's assessment of the victim's credibility was not perverse.